I became aware of the link between climate change and food in 2007 and actually became vegan when I realised there was effectively nothing else I could do.

I’ll point to some recent research by the UNEP (UN Environmental Program) which talks about this specifically. This link is to a guardian article which explains the issue in specifics.

It has been known to environmentalists and policy makers but rarely talked about in those terms – it’s always thought of as something impossible to change. Talking about it is difficult as people feel their lifestyles are under attack. And vegans annoy everyone because they are super talented at making people feel like second class humans.

Therein lies the problem to be solved – informing people in such a way that they are empowered rather than disheartened or worse, annoyed – which could easily have the opposite effect as intended.

Folks need to be aware of the vast middle ground where small steps are helpful. This needs to happen in a non-jedgemental way. The best way to inform people I think is to let them play with the variables, and see the differences themselves.

This is what I intend to achieve and I’ll firstly look at competing works to see if and how they’re doing it.

Misunderstanding the brief a little…

I was looking for a design problem, hence I chose blackboard as an obviously huge issue.

I’ve just realised that we are asked to present a design solution for any problem.

To research a solution for blackboard I’d need to do primary research – adding another layer of difficulty to the assignment. It’d be much simpler to choose a problem that is already well researched, and drawing on that.

New problem to tackle

At risk of being cliche – the climate problem is a large one, has a rich data surrounding it, and there is huge potential for human agency in solving it. So I believe this will be a better basis for the project.

However as the climate issue has many angels, it’d be interesting to narrow in one the least publicised area of agency – food. I was surprised to hear from a friend a few years ago how different foods can affect the atmosphere and it’d be interesting to present a unique solution to this.

There are many existing web based tools for examining aspects of lifestyle and how this affects the climate – however I’d like to do something more specific – and look at how specific changes can affect changes to people in the most climate vulnerable areas.

The largest – most inconvenient problem in interactivity I experience today is the QUT student backend. It may be an obvious choice but I believe there are multiple options to improve the experience for students and staff.

Study can be frustrating by itself. Many issues with Blackboard make it hell. I’m looking forward to researching further, but some come to mind immediately.

How would I describe these issues?

Fragmentation

Finding things is difficult. There is some logic in the organisation, but it’s not consistent across subjects. The result is that students really need to use their heads just to access their study materials.

Each proprietary system the university employs, such as for accessing lecture recordings, subject info. Switching between system isolates the information in impractical ways. For example you can’t access lecture recordings for all subjects at once.

I understand the university is probably heavily invested – but at some point you’ve gotta cut your losses.

Lack of Standards

Lecture notes, course information are in a variety of formats that interrupts student’s workflows.

Each bite of information posted commentable. @username Communication system that everyone’s familiar with for tutor-class communication. Based on or using something like Slack, integrated with the CMS.